Swing low sweet chariot

Swing low sweet chariot

 

Swing low sweet chariot -

at three my father sang 

the words to me and soon

I sang with him,  his large

basso velvet voice and my 

little one merged together 

echoing off the tiles at bubble

bathtime – or in our tiny living 

room, wherever the mood to 

sing struck him, and I his

willing duet partner de-

lighted to fill my lungs

and revel in the fill of 

words in the air – the

thrum of some sort of

big feeling I could not name

in my chest

 

Swing low sweet chariot 

Comin’ for to carry me home

A band of angels comin’ for to me 

Comin’ for to carry me home 

 

As a teen we still sang together

all sorts of show tunes ….

Carousel and Porgy and Bess – 

that sort of thing and we were

in my memory quite good together

belting out in full voice 

 

I looked over Jordan 

And what did I see 

Comin’ for to carry me home

A band of angels comin’ after me

 

We never stopped singing that song – 

Though time and geography grew –

college came and I went, a too early 

marriage and some years lived in the

bliss of the Virgin Islands - 

Where, there, in the shower – 

in the evening at sunset –alone or

later dancing with the infant son

I bore, I sang the familiar words

 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Somewhere I knew he was singing too 

Comin’ for to carry me home

A band of angels comin’ for to me 

 

And one hot day years later on that

forever marked, shimmered August

afternoon – sunlight pouring over

him as he lay shivering in the heat

I pulled the puffed white duvet up 

to his neck, smoothed cologne in his 

black hair shot, watched the sun glint

on his threaded strands of  platinum – 

oxygen hummed in the corner – as I 

sat on his bed and sang as he whispered ….

 

Sweet low, sweet chariot 

Coming for to carry me home 

A band of angels comin’ for to me

Comin’ for to carry me home

 

His eyes closed, his lips cracked

dry – but still in that quiet room – 

in those last days, each time I sang, 

and sang, and sang, over and over 

and over again -

 

Swing low, sweet chariot

Comin’ for to carry me home ..

Each time, I knew that from 

the beginning he had taught

me, had scripted his leave-

taking, softened his ending with –

 

A band of angels comin’ for to me 

As he was carried away with song